Bryant Shannon
Emergency Medicine at MGH/BWH
PGY4
I
participated in the COE Clinical Teaching Skills Course along with residents
and fellows across Partners’ Training Programs. This course caught my interest
as an excellent supplement to my PGY4 curriculum. In our residency, the
fourth-year resident supervises and teaches junior residents. The residency
curriculum was designed to prepare graduates to transition into the role of
academic clinician and medical educator after graduation. This requires a skill
set different from the prior three years where the emphasis is on developing
our clinical skills.
I
appreciate those attendings and senior residents who have been part my growth
as mentors and educators. These interactions have shaped my own interests in
becoming a medical educator. However, as much as I could easily identify who
the great teachers are in our program, I never previously considered what made
them so strong. The role of ‘pre-tending’ has not been as easy and seamless as
I imagined. It is challenging to give junior colleagues thoughtful feedback
that encourages them to flourish. This course gave me an opportunity to
practice teaching and creating an optimal learning environment.
Working with trainees from across specialties allowed for an exchange of unique perspectives and an opportunity to share best practices.
Implementing what we learned while on shift in the ED |
This
course also explored the human limitations with learning. This was a helpful
realization for me as I often supervise junior residents while they are doing new
procedures. When a learner is concentrating on a new procedural skill, it is
nearly impossible for them to listen thoughtfully and digest feedback
simultaneously. This will influence the way I teach procedures with the
majority of instruction and feedback occurring not in real time but before and
after.
Finally,
one of the lectures from the course discussed the evidence-based literature
around cognition and retention of information. It was super interesting to hear
about techniques for remembering and processing both concrete and abstract new
information. I wish I had known more about these topics at the beginning of
medical school, which would have helped me better digest the large volume of
information thrown at us. As I prepare for my EM Boards and my Critical Care
fellowship, I will be continuing to practice and better refine these skills
both to improve myself as a learner and as an educator.
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